Press Release

Agreement Signed on German-Japanese Cooperation

29. June 2015

On 26 June in Tokyo, the German Rectors' Conference (HRK) and its Japanese partner organisations – the Japan Association of National Universities (JANU), the Japan Association of Public Universities (JAPU) and the Federation of Japanese Private Colleges and Universities Associations (FJPCUA) – signed a German-Japanese framework agreement on university cooperation.

The agreement contains recommendations for cooperation and academic mobility between universities in both countries for teaching, study, research and development. It also makes recommendations concerning the recognition of academic degrees and qualifications and the admission of German and Japanese students and doctoral candidates to university programmes.

"The new framework agreement will be conducive to promoting cooperation between the universities in the two countries further and in particular help to simplify mutual recognition of qualifications," said HRK President Prof. Dr. Horst Hippler at the signing of the document. The agreement will deepen the long tradition of academic cooperation between the two countries, he continued, noting that the HRK has currently more than 600 cooperation agreements between German and Japanese universities listed in its Higher Education Compass.

"In both Japan and Germany, the internationalisation of universities is proceeding apace; the degree of cooperation between universities in our two countries has grown in intensity. Particularly in research, cooperation is very intensive and productive. At the same time we still see a lot of untapped potential. In particular, joint study programmes and doctoral projects leading to dual degrees have the potential to intensify cooperation because they contribute to the creation of lasting structures of cooperation and not just bilateral contacts," said Hippler in Tokyo.

The dialogue between the rectors' conferences on research and higher education policy is also to be continued. The leaderships of German and Japanese universities agree that in view of the growing pressure on universities to think in economic terms, more effort must be made to emphasise the importance of higher education and university research to the sustainability of societies and cultures.